A number of central nervous system diseases and conditions result in neuronal damage. These conditions which can lead to nerve damage include:
Primary neurodegenerative disease; Huntington's Chorea; Stroke and other hypoxic or ischemic processes; neurotrauma; metabolically induced neurological damage; sequelae from cerebral seizures; hemorrhagic stroke; secondary neurodegenerative disease (metabolic or toxic); Parkinson's disease; Alzheimer's disease, Senile Dementia of Alzheimer's Type (SDAT); age associated cognitive dysfunctions; or vascular dementia, multi-infarct dementia, Lewy body dementia, or neurodegenerative dementia.
Pramipexole is a dopamine-D.sub.3 /D.sub.2 agonist the synthesis of which is described in European Patent 186 087 and its counterpart, U.S. Pat. No. 4,886,812. It is known primarily for the treatment of schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. It is known from German patent application DE 38 43 227 that pramipexole lowers the plasma level of prolactin. Also, this European patent application discloses the use of pramipexole in the treatment of drug dependency. Further, it is known from German patent application DE 39 33 738 that pramipexole can be used to decrease abnormal high levels of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH). U.S. Pat. No. 5,112,842 discloses the transdermal administration of the compounds and transdermal systems containing these active compounds. WO patent application PCT/EP 93/03389 describes the use of pramipexole as an antidepressant agent.
Up to now there is no commercially available drug for the therapeutic treatment of stroke with proven evidence of efficacy.
Surprisingly and unexpectedly, it has been found that pramipexole and its (+)-enantiomer also has a neuroprotective effect.